When I Grow Up

When I was little (and by "little" I mean 15) I wanted to be a philanthropist. What I really meant by "philanthropist" was having a lot of money to do with what I pleased, which included giving exorbitant amounts to those less fortunate than I. I did not have a game plan for accumulating said mounds of money. Working at a particular vocation or marrying, which, in my opinion is redundant, hadn't entered the equation.

What I did not know at the time, but have since realized, is that I actually wanted to discover my passion and entrepreneur-erize with it!

Having come a ways down the thicketed path of entrepreneur-ism, I find myself home on a Friday night, blogging as I procrastinate on the more important aspects of my business that are demanding attention almost as loudly as my bed. I am blessed, truly, to have had many mentors encouraging me to pursue my passion instead of a 9-5. Discovering the vast and intricate world of real estate investing is hard but rewarding and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

However...

We've hit a wall. We have properties; they are GREAT deals! We just need proof of funds from an investor(s) to put the purchase contracts through. To get investors, however, it would generally be better to have the properties lined up so they don't feel like they're blindly giving us funds so we can vacation at length in Acapulco. Quite the catch 22.

Additionally it would be fantastic to actually have a prospectus printed but that first needs attorney review (we're interviewing lawyer #3 Monday), who will require a retainer to review our documents and create contracts, which requires funds. It would be fantastic to acquire some dough through making some buck on a property but we first need the investor. (like the deer pun there? eh? okay it's late, give me a break!).

If any of my silent fans are also secret millionaires, drop me a line. We can use code names and everything.

Detecting Mortgage Scam Comps or If It's Too Good To Be True....

Hello Fans!

Although none of you have left comments, I am sure you've been screaming for my return. My absence is the result of finding the deal of a lifetime only to be crushed by the reality-check wave. My partners and I were recently alerted to a two-flat property in Inglewood, on the dicey southside of Chicago for those of you not from around here. The property was a shortsale that an investor we knew was processing for a distressed family and they were looking to us as an end buyer.

The asking price was $35,000 with $50-$55k in repairs needed, basically a total rehab. The comps were....wait for it! $300-$350 ARV! For those of you non-math geniuses out there, that means we'd be in it for $85-$90k and could sell it for $250, giving the new owner $50-$100k in equity, and we would still make a $160k profit! We were practically peeing in our pants we were so excited!

And then the balloon popped.

RS, our astute numbers guy, posed the following question: Only an investor would buy these properties so that they could cash-flow them as rentals. Why would anyone buy these at $350 when there is no possible way they could cash-flow positive at that price? And yet we had at least 6 comps within a few blocks that sold in that range in the last 6 months. It just didn't make sense!

Fortunately we are connected with other savvy investors who gave us the downlow with what's what's up in Inglewood. Unfortunately the asnwer was not thrilling. Apparently a cartel of slimy investors started buying two-flats in Ingelwood/Back of the Yards for foreclosure prices, $20-$40k, and then selling them to other investors, i.e. a trusted friend, for $300-$350 but then giving a kick-back after closing of $150-$200k to the "friend" and splitting it outside closing. This, friends, is mortgage fraud. Don't try this at home or Lisa Maddigan will eat you alive!

We were blessed to learn of the scam before getting in WAY over our heads but a little bummed that what seemed like such an amazing opporunity was in fact not. We are now investigating other REO's we located through our realtor in the western suburbs. The profit margins are not quite as large but at least they're legitimate and we won't have to risk prison time to complete the deal!

Stay tuned!

Property Limbo or What Happens Between Auction and REO

Hi Fans,

Pardon the delay in posts; the life of an entrepreneur is not always exciting. In fact many days are filled with chilling to bank hold-music, seeking answers no one wants to give and chasing your tail to the point that you want a stiff drink long before noon rolls around. But I digress. I finally nailed down a status for the Oak Forest property, which as you may recall went to auction several weeks ago. After weeks of phone tag with the lawyer who, to her credit, was playing the same game with the bank's I'm-on-a-permanent-vacation loss mitigation guy, we finally connected.
So here's your golden nugget for the week: what kind of offer can you put on a house that has been to auction and not sold, but is technically not an REO since the bank does not yet have the deed? Answer: the bank will only accept the starting auction bid plus a minimal amount to cover legal fees. In the case of OF, the asking price is $100,000 and the bank wants $1,000 to cover the vampire's er lawyer's fees;-) We would have to buy the house as-is, like in a judicial sale, and there would be no BPO or opportunity to negotiate the price down.
Knowing how much work needs to be done on this particular property we will, of course, not be submitting an offer. The good news is that our contact info will be filtered down to the bank's realtor co. and we will be contacted once the bank gets the deed. How exciting. I'm seeing many follow up calls in my future.

Okay kids, that's all for now. File this away 'cuz not only did I not know the answer to this situation, but neither did the lawyer with whom I've been speaking.

From Short Sale to REO or What To Do After You've Been Rejected

Greeting fans!

As you know, our Oak Forest deal did not go through as a short sale, but are hopeful that the property did not sell at auction, which took place this past Tuesday, so we can make an offer on it as an REO. This leads to my project of the day: how do you find out if a property sold at auction if you didn't attend the auction?

I'm learning as I go on this front, well, actually I'm learning as I go on all fronts, but I have no prior training to tackle this question;-)

I started by googling the question: it was a long shot but seemed like the path of least resistance: alas, my faithful friend failed me.

Next stop was the bank's customer service department, who was quite helpful in directing me to their Consumer REO Department which offered an automated list of contacts depending on the city/state in which the REO's are located. The Chicago numbers belonged to realty companies, one of which I called. Unfortunately the guy with whom I spoke, Mike was helpful but useless. Apparently the bank, at least Harris, directs their REO's to a realtor, but they can't get any information from the sheriff's office until they get the contract from the bank, a process that takes about 30 days. Mike suggested calling back in about a month, which is a lot longer than I was planning to wait, about 29 days longer actually.

The sheriff's office seemed like the next step and, since the foreclosure link on their website was down, I called. I was quickly, if inefficiently, directed to a woman who was unable to give me any information unless I had a sheriff's number (what the heck is that?). She suggested speaking with the bank's attorney who would be authorized to give the information.

I've left a message with the vampires, who were recalcitrant in returning my earlier calls regarding the short sale offer, so we'll see how it goes with this query.

In the meantime I hope this will short cut your research time in the future.

If you'd like to tackle questions like these on your own checkout http://www.newrichbdg.com/

Follow the Brick and Mortar Road or Tracking Down the Owner of a Mult-Unit

Hello fans!

Well our newest, not to mention only, short sale lead is certaintly taking her time in returning our calls. Since doing nothing while you wait isn't very profitable, and neither is brick breaker for that matter, I am forging through pre-forclosure lists in hopes of contacting other owners in need of our services.

I am finding that many properties, especially in Chicago, listed as foreclosures are actually apartment buildings. Most lists give you the address of the property but not the owner and their contact information. Resorting to reverse address search on www.whitepages.com I found a few legit phone numbers but many connected to tenants in multi-unit buildings. Obvsiously they can't be the ones in foreclosure so today I went about investigating how to find the owner.

Want to know what I found?

http://tenantsunion.org/rights/8/WhoisMyLandlord

This is my first step. Anyone know of other ways to track 'em down?



"Vitally important for a young man or woman is, first, to realize the value of education and then to cultivate earnestly, aggressively, ceaselessly, the habit of self-education." BS Forbes

I got my education here: www.newrichbdg.com

Food for thought since I have no story

"As long as you enjoy investing, you'll be willing to do the homework and stay in the game. That's why I try to make the show so entertaining, because if you aren't interested, you'll either miss the opportunity to make money in the market or not pay enough attention and end up losing your shirt" Jim Cramer

Do your homework: www.newrichbdg.com

Running the Numbers or Knowing When to Say No

After speaking to Jim at the bank, I called RS. We decided that we had perhaps underestimated the property's after-repair value. We were guessing we could sell for $150 but maybe it was higher so we went to http://www.blockshopper.com/, a great website, again recommended to us by a member of the Nouveau community, to see which real estate agents were ranked highest in sales in Oak Forest.

We called the top three agents and asked for comps on our short sale and they all said the most we would get is low $200's. This meant our original estimate had been low and we needed to hear from our contractors to see if our repair guess was accurate. All three contractors gave us bids between $70-80k. These numbers meant that if we bought the house from the bank at $110 and put $80k in we couldn't break even.

The only way we could make the deal work would be if the bank accepted a lower offer and, quite honestly, there was no motivation on their part to do so. Unfortunately that meant a big disappointment to our home owner, but at least they know they exhausted every option. On our end we were a bit disappointed that our first deal did not pan out, but we learned a lot and picked up another short sale the same day we realized our first was not going to work!

Perseverance is definitely the key to making money at this, but a good education must proceed it. To see where I got mine visit http://www.newrichbdg.com/

Talking to the Loss Mitigator or Crap! I'm Not Ready For This!

After my partner submitted the fax I called the bank to confirm its receipt. I was told they had it and would be hearing from the loss mitigator at some point the following day. Imagine my surprise when, 15 minutes later, he called to discuss the offer! Here I admit I was a bit nervous because 1) I have never submitted an offer to the bank and had no idea what questions he might pose and 2) I have no experience negotiating with a loss mitigator and was afraid I’d say the wrong thing.

I had been hoping that the mitigator would call when MM was around and that he would field the call while I listened, then I could try it on my own next time. But my phone was ringing and the auction is Tuesday so I just had to suck it up and answer. I took comfort in knowing that I knew my numbers, I was intimately familiar with the specific issues in the house and I knew a few important questions I needed to ask, even if I might not be given the answers.

Fortunately I got a nice guy, Jim, who I had a great, honest conversation with, which is not the norm for loss mitigators from what I have heard. He said point blank our offer was too low and that he could not cancel the sale next week in order to get a BPO done. The auction date had already been postponed once and the bank had seen no evidence that the home owner was attempting to remediate the situation until now, four days before auction. I asked what the bank was asking for at auction, something he did not have to tell me, and he said just over $100k. I asked if he would consider a cash offer if I could get it to him by Monday to which he replied maybe. He said the offer would have to accompany a complete short sale packet and that he would have to know I was not "yanking his chain". Remember what I said about submitting a higher offer contingent upon inspection and then lowering our offer? That is exactly to what Jim was referring. I told Jim I would contact my partner and call on Monday.

To learn how I got to be this fabulous check out: www.newrichbdg.com

Submitting an Offer or Getting Our #$%@ Together in No Time At All!

Getting the rehab estimate was our pre req to calling the bank about a short sale offer. We had an idea of how much it would cost to rehab the place but wanted a few professional opinions to confirm. Without a high repair value, we knew the bank would be reluctant to deal with us since the auction date is only a week away. While researching some questions that had arisen, my partner contacted MM, a friend of ours in the Nouveau Riche community. MM graciously offered to call the bank for us while we listened to give us a tutorial on how to speak with them.

After hours, and I do mean HOURS, of finagling the automated system, getting connected to the wrong person and sitting on hold only to land in a voicemail box we FINALLY got through to the guy in collections just below the loss mitigator who had been assigned our property. Mr. Collections advised us to submit an offer directly to the loss mitigator; not a short sale packet, but an offer, which consisted of the MLS standard purchase contract, a disclosure form and a cover letter with a brief paragraph explaining the situation and the home condition (since there was no hardship letter, estimates, or financial docs accompanying our offer).

MM generously assisted us with filling out the purchase contract, which he provided. He also informed us of the need to send along the disclosure, which he also provided, and suggested that we briefly explain the situation on the fax cover page. Talk about a wealth of information! We put an offer together in about an hour because of MM’s assistance and were able to submit it to the bank before the close of business. Without him it would have taken us a day or two simply because it was our first time and because we had anticipated submitting a complete short sale packet, which we had been preparing, but not the purchase contract only.

The only challenging aspect of submitting the offer quickly was that each page of the contract had to be initialed by the home owners, who were all the way in Oak Forest. Fortunately my partner had nothing scheduled for the afternoon and was able to drive out to them, get the signatures and fax it to the bank from the property.

When people talk about the value found in the Nouveau Riche community THIS is what they mean! MM asked for nothing in return; we thanked him profusely and he said, “I know you would have done the same for me”, which is true. Next time we do this it will be much easier since we now know what to do, but I’ll be darned if I could have figured that out on my own! I honestly do not know how people think they can go to the library and learn how to do a short sale on their own!

A few notes on the contract. We submitted an offer MUCH higher than we were willing to pay. We knew the bank had not done an interior BPO because we asked specifically when we spoke with Mr. Collections, therefore we knew they had no idea what poor condition the home was actually in. Since we did not have written estimates back from the contractors we felt offering $30k off the bat without justification would cause the bank to reject our offer without a second glance. Instead we came in at $68k, knowing we had an escape clause in the contract that the offer was contingent on further inspection. It’s paragraph 10 of the standard MLS purchase agreement just in case you were wondering;-)

You can become a real estate investing genius too! Check out http://www.newrichbdg.com/

Best Way to Conduct an Estimate or Mars vs. Venus

While conducting our estimates yesterday I noticed two very different approaches taking place: mine and my partners. Perhaps this is stylistic differences or perhaps there is a wrong way and a right way to do this (or should I say one way and a better way?). Anyone who wants to weigh in on this from experience, please do!

After the first contractor I had a good idea of what should be pointed out to the next guy. My thought was to show him the work we wanted done and move on quickly. Thus the exterior of the house took me 5-10 minutes to go over with the 2nd contractor since RS was inside finishing with the 1st. I told him we wanted to repour the driveway, remove three trees, replace the vinyl siding, remove the awnings, take out the concrete stairs and replace with treated wood deck, change the doors, put a new roof on the garage and we were done.

My partner, on the other hand, caught up with us before we made it inside and re-toured the property, slowly walking the perimeter, asking for suggestions, pointing to one thing and another; asking the contractors opinion and vision casting for what we could do with different aspects of the home.

My feeling was we should know what we want, tell the contractor and be done with it; his/her only input should be if there was some glaring flaw in our plan. My partner, however, is taking the “let’s create this together” route, but that’s not really their job, or is it? Any thoughts?

Estimates or Next Time Wear Comfortable Shoes, Not Heels!

Since the owner started working with us a mere week before her auction date it was important for us to get some estimates on the repairs needed in order to make an offer to the bank, thus spent all of yesterday, Monday, scheduling 4 contractors for today. Since Oak Forest is quite a drive for me and my partner we scheduled them an hour apart, not knowing how long each would take. Our first guy cancelled a few hours prior and I unsuccessfully attempted to fill his time with another contractor. In the end this turned out to be a good thing because just three estimates took all afternoon. We had guessed an hour for each hoping it would be shorter, however the house needed so much work that each took about an hour and fifteen. RS ended up finishing with one guy while I got started with another.

Although it took a while, we learned what kinds of questions to ask and I learned not to wear high heels to tromp around a property for four hours. We also learned to see the house in a new way; we didn’t realize how much needed to be done until we started going through it meticulously. While we spent a lot of time getting bids today we may still need to get more but we recognize that we are building our team and, once we have someone who has proven himself trustworthy, we will be able to call him instead of all the “interviewing”.

Anyway, after an exhausting afternoon, we had a much more accurate picture of all the house needed and estimated our rehab costs at $70-80k. If we can negotiate the bank down to $20-$30k we’ll be in it for around $100k, sell it for $150k within a week (after the rehab that is!) and make about $30-40k profit after paying points to our financier, closing costs, title fees etc.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Curious about how I learned all this? visit www.newrichbdg.com

The Short Sale Packet or Where the @#$^ Does One Get These Documents?

One of the biggest challenges I intially faced was getting the documents for the short sale packet. For those of you who do not know, there is wide array of standard forms needed to submit a short sale offer to a bank. The great thing about our short sale class at Nouveau Riche was that we were walked through every step of the short sale process including a line by line account of how to fill in the paperwork. What I did not realize until much later is that actually acquiring the paperwork is not as easy as googling the document name.

Lawyers want to create them for you (at their low hourly rate), companies want to sell you their software and templates to create them on your own (for special sale price), and the few “free” ones out there are crap and would need attorney review anyway, not to mention that none of the docs I found, were state specific! I felt like Harry Potter in that scene from the first movie when he's trying to get his Hogwarts letter. Envelopes are raining the kitchen from every crevice and crack; he's jumping up in the air trying to catch one, but even though he's surrounded by them he grab even one. I knew lots of people in the NR community who were doing short sales. They all seemed to have these mysterious documents, but where did they get them and, more importantly, how could I get a copy?!

And so....I asked:)

My partner, RS, texted every NR contact he had asking for assistnace in procuring documentation. Within 24 hours we had a hail storm of papers flying at us: four people generously sent their docs to us and there are still more offering to pass papers on. We have some duplicates and will figure out what works best as we go through this for the first time. Were it not for our friends in the community we could have done it on our own, but I prefer to short-cut my success.

Tony Robbins, one of my favorite gurus on personal development, suggests that doing everything youself is not the most efficient way to success, but that leveraging people who have gone before you and learning from their experience, is a a far better way. All in all the Nouveau community came through for us and I deeply appreciative to all who assisted! Thanks!

If you are interested in learning how you can connect into this incredible community of investors check out: www.newrichbdg.com

My First Short Sale or This is Really Hard Work!

After networking and researching we got our first short sale! Yay! It's in Oak Forest and an absolute dump from what I hear. The property was referred to my partner through a friend, who knew the homeowner was facing foreclosure due to the recent job market. They were behind on their mortgage payments, had already had their auction date extended once and still had not been able to come up with the fund to get current on their loan. Their second auction date was about a month away when I first contacted the owner.

The homeowner was in a state of denial and, at first, would not return my calls or e-mails since she was thinking she could avoid the short sale. I ended up writing an empathetic e-mail stating that I knew how hard her situation was and that I wanted to help in any way I could. I said I knew it was challenging to face the unknown, especially when it means something you really don’t want to happen must occur. I encouraged her to contact me so that we could get going on the short sale as a plan B, since her plan A was to earn comission through her network marketing business. She had written the bank requesting another extension on the auction date but I told her I wanted to make sure she had a safety net in case the bank would not grant the request or she could not come up with the funds in time. When she finally contacted me she said my e-mail , “hit the nail on the head”. I was able to gently speak to her fears and that motivated her to call me. Once she called we were able to get moving with the paperwork.

If it sounds like I've learned a lot, it's because I have. This is where I figured it out: www.newrichbdg.com

Finding a Short Sale or 10,000 Spoons When all You Need is a Spoon

Upon returning from the college I elected to take on a business partner. Short Sales are one of the most intricate real estate transactions that exist and, while I could have done it on my own, it would have taken much longer than if I had someone partnering with me. RS, therefore, came on board and we began masterminding ways to find short sales, which, in this market, isn't terribly difficult since so many people are in loans they can no longer afford.

We began by contacting a real estate agent friend of mine, Greg, who has been invaluable in sending us properties in our area that are in pre-foreclosure. Our deal with him is if we find a property through him, and negotiate with the bank to buy it at a discount, when we fix it up and prepare to resell it we use Greg as our realtor. This might sound like it took a lot to make it happen but it was actually quite simple. Having already established a relationship with him it took very little convincing for him to meet with us, plus he's getting something out of it.

I would guess that almost everyone knows at least one real estate agent either directly or through a friend; I would encourage you to start with someone you know because it feels more comfortable. As you gain experience you'll want to contact Realtors who work specifically in the area you are buying and build relationships with others who have an excellent performance record i.e. they're selling a lot of homes! A tip a friend in the NR community gave me was to drive around a neighborhood/area in which you are considering buying and look to see which agent's name appears on the most signs. Odds are that person is getting a lot of deals done and thus a valuable asset for your exit strategy.

Another connection I made was with a mortgage broker, Mike, who I actually met in a bar several years ago. A rather drunk woman decided we made a good-looking couple and tried to play Yenta for us. We got along fine but there were no sparks, however we learned we both had an interest in investing so we exchanged information. RS and I met Mike for coffee, explained what we were dong and he agreed to refer clients to us whom he cannot re-finance or do a loan-modification for. In return we agreed to make him our preferred lender to prospective buyers on our fix and flips.

Buildling mutually beneficial relationships is my favorite way to find deals especially because the person referring the short sale to you has likely had contact with the home owner and therefore has put in a good word for you as someone who can a) educate them on their options and b) might be able to buy their house and c) isn't a scheister!

For more info on how I became such a freakin' genius visit: www.newrichbdg.com


Another option, although we have not yet gone down this road, is to hit the courthouse, which has public records of distressed properties. There are also on-line services from which you can buy lists of pre-foreclosure homes in your area. One that my friend Mick likes is www.public-record.com

From that point you can mail letters or go door to door and speak to the home owners in person. I do not recommend talking to the home owners, however, unless you know what the heck you are doing. First, if you are not educated in the different option home owners have before doing a short sale, then you are doing them a diservice. Secondly, if they choose to work with you they are putting a lot of faith in you to provide them a solution. If the bank will not accept a price that make the numbers work on your end, that's one thing, but to work with a homeowner and fail simply becasue you didn't know what you were doing is an entirely different matter.

If you are interested in getting the same education I got visit: www.newrichbdg.com

My Major or Let's Learn Something Useful Shall We?

In selecting classes I had a wide variety of investing strategies on which I could focus. Based on where the market is I chose to study the short sale strategy. For those of you wondering, “what is a short sale?” let me first say I’m a little surprised you’re reading this blog! However, to clarify, a short sale is when a homeowner is behind in their payments, for whatever reason, and a third party, either a Realtor or a private investor like myself, negotiates with the bank to buy the property at a discount. In other words the bank is shorted some of the money owed, hence the name.

This strategy allows the homeowner to avoid a foreclosure on his/her credit report and usually completely absolves them of the debt owed; it gets the property off the banks hands (they do not want to take properties back!) and gives me, the investor, a property that I can either cash flow by renting to tenants or, if it needs repairs, fix and flip it for a profit. NR taught me every step of the process in intricate, and legal, detail. From finding distressed properties and how to speak with the owners, to what kind of paperwork is needed and how to fill it out, to negotiating with the bank and handling a BPO, to building a team to handling a closing: they covered it all.

In addition to short sales I took a class on legal strategies as well as tax strategies, both of which were invaluable in showing me how to protect my assets and mitigate my tax liability (within the boundaries of the law people!). Armed and enthusiastic, which is just as good as dangerous, I returned to Chicago ready to track down a distressed property!

College of Wish I'd Done This the First Time Around

I had signed up for classes in February and was eager to see what my money had bought come April. Prior to attending the college, other investors I met through Brandon crowed about the amazing experience and said I would be blown away. They kept saying this even after I paid for my tuition so my hopes were high that I had not just dumped a bunch of money on some weekend-hotel seminar. I was not disappointed.

Another comment I heard repeatedly was that words cannot describe how great the college experience is: it turns out they were correct. I sit here pondering an accurate description and all my attempts fall short of the vivid picture I’d like to paint, so bear with me as I make an attempt.

Let me first say my expectation was somewhat low. I imagined sitting in an overly air conditioned and seldom vacuumed conference room in the basement of a Motel 6 taking notes from an overhead projector in a room populated with bald, pocket-protector wearing accountants. The thought of sitting in class for 8 hr/day for the bulk of my spring break vacation was not a comforting thought. I tried to focus on the education aspect and told myself this enormous sacrifice was what I had to do in order to accomplish my future dreams, which is what any self-sacrificing parent would do for their children; only instead of a child I had a hamster with a voracious appetite and large testicles. That part about the education turned out to be true: this was what I needed to do to make my dreams come true and not lose a fortune in the process. Fortunately that part about the accountants was a needless worry.

The first benefit to the college is that it's located in AZ. For anyone living in Chicago, you know April is not exactly a balmy time of year so heading south was not without its advantages. Flip-flops and sunglasses were the order of the day, although most our time was spent in conference rooms, but they were really really nice conference rooms and not the seedy, roach-infested slums of my overactive imagination.

The second benefit was the energy of being surrounded by people who are totally jazzed about the same things as you. Their enthusiasm was infectious and their stories of success were inspiring since I was so new to the game. Meeting and networking with hundreds of individuals who are learning and actually investing successfully across the country was quite a rush.

The third perk was the organization of the event, It was precise as the finest of Swiss engineered timepieces, despite the thousands of students attending. I was always able to find a free bathroom stall, get coffee or a snack without waiting in endless lines, and park conveniently. Everything started and ended on time, including the breaks, which, for an OCD time freak like myself, was soothing and impressive.

These three components lent to an excellent first impression, but paled in comparison to the actual classes, all of which were taught by dynamic, energetic, knowledgeable and successful investors. They say that it’s not what people say, but how they make you feel, but in the case of real estate education I think the, “what they say” , part is pretty damned important! However, each instructor covered their material so thoroughly and efficiently that I left each class feeling confident that I could go home and apply what I had learned. I also felt enthused and inspired to start using my education, a feeling I rarely experienced at my alma mater, Loyola.

As I scan back over what I wrote the description seems woefully lacking, but then saying “The David” is an elegant sculpture doesn’t really do it justice either does it? All I can say is that prior to attending NR's college, my friends and family warned of the dire experience they, or people they knew, had suffered at other weekend real estate conferences. This week long extravaganza was nothing like what the naysayers said; no one tried to up-sell me and I left feeling empowered. I can honestly say that if that one week was all my money had bought it would have been worth it….but I get to go again! I get to go 7 more times! Wahoo!

To see what I'm doing with what I learned keep reading or visit: www.newrichbdg.com

Nouveau Riche or A Better Approach then the Library

The meeting with Brandon, who was a real estate investor, eventually led me to Arizona for an amazing education on real estate investment strategies. In earlier posts I mentioned the naïveté with which I first endeavored to invest and, fortunately, I met Brandon who steered me in the right direction before I had too many blond moments and really hurt myself financially.

His story of struggling to invest on his own, learning by experience and losing a lot of money in the process, inspired me to get involved with a real estate education company called Nouveau Riche. NR uses a collegiate based system to educate investors over a two year period (what? you thought you could learn it all in a weekend?!). The information you get, however, can be immediately applied and comes with a plethora of on-line resources as well as personal access to the millionaire investors who teach each class. It's kind of like college, only the students actually want to learn, the teachers actually knows what they're talking about and eveyrone is actually applying the information in the real world and creating success. I'm short on time today as I have a waxing and wine appointment with my gf so I'll go into the college experience details next time.

In the meantime live abundantly and do something to better yourself other than reading this blog!

More Serendipity or The Power of Your RAS

While I met MO in August it took until December for her to connect me with her contact in Chicago. I am still not sure why it took so long, but the timing perfect, as I will illustrate shortly.

While waiting on MO I had been poking through Dean Graziosi’s book. He was far more detailed than Kiyosaky in the “how to” of real estate investing but I still lacked the confidence to go out on my own and actually DO a deal. I longed for a mentor; someone who could show me the ropes, warn me of the pitfalls and hold my hand a bit on the first deal. I was thinking about a mentor one day while en route to the gym when, to my great surprise, passed a van parked in the office complex that said, “Real estate investor seeks apprentice”. That was me! I could hardly believe my eyes! Was this a sign? I was so shocked I made a deal with God: if the van was still there after my workout I would stop and take the number.

An hour later it was still there so I stopped and took the number. As with buying the Graziosi book, it took me a week to finally call and, when I finally got the balls up to do it, the line was disconnected. Curses. I took this as another sign.

Two months later MO finally gaves me the contact number for her guy, Brandon, and we set a meeting. Imagine my surprise when I pull into the same office complex as where the real estate van had been parked! The van belonged to Brandno's business partner, Scott, I had input Scott's number incorrectly by ONE digit! How’s that for ser-en-freakin-dipitiy?!

In my title I mention the RAS, which stand for reticular activating system and it’s your brain’s “sort” feature. Your RAS is what causes you to notice the new car you bought being driven all over the place or helps you scan a page lfor a particular name or fact. Your RAS, in other words, is designed to give you what you want. On that drive to the gym I wanted a real estate mentor. The seed of real estate investing had taken root months ago with Kiyosaki's book but I felt paralyzed in moving forward. I knew I needed assistance to get started but didn't know where to find it so my RAS sorted found a mentor for me! Your RAS is intricately related to the Law of Attraction that Oprah and others are all of a dither over as of late.

I highly recommend “The Secret” or "The Answer" by John Assaraf and Murray Smith as an excellent source for understanding the workings of your subconscious mind. You will find it useful in pursuing any avenue or life or business.

To see how it helped me visit: http://www.newrichbdg.com/

Serendipity or You Never Know Who You'll Meet at a Pig Roast

Summer of 2008 arrived around mid July and along with it myriad family problems, the details of which I will not burden you with at the moment. Rather than stick around Chicago I escaped to Green Lake, WI with a few good girlfriends for a girl’s weekend away from responsibilities, cell phone and boys. My girlfriend, KR, was raised on summers in Green Lake and consequently new the neighbors quite well. And so it was that I came to be at a pig roast at the home of an artist whose name I don’t know, but she had a lovely lawn and good guacamole.

Attempting to make us feel comfortable, KR’s mother introduced us to MO, the only other person under 30 at the entire shindig. As it turned out MO was perfectly friendly and talented! MO’s parents also had a lake house a few doors down from the artist, which MO had recently finished redecorating. By “redecorating” I do not mean that she went to Bed Beth & Beyond on a shopping spree. I mean she sewed matching curtains and duvets for the bedrooms, reupholstered the furniture and refinished the floors on her own! She’s wonder woman and could give old Martha a serious run for her money.

Interior design junkie that I am I begged for a tour, to which MO graciously obliged. Imagine my surprise when, in the midst of handmade duvets and power drills, I learned that MO recently moved from Chicago where she had been involved with a company called Nouveau Riche. NR taught people how to do exactly what I wanted to do: Invest in real estate!

MO eagerly offered to connect me with her contact in Chicago to which I ebulliently agreed (nice vocab for a blond huh?). From that point on MO and I were inseperable, which is to say I haven't actually seen her since as she was moving to VA a few days after we met, but we call, e-mail, text and facebook a lot which is basically the same thing.

To see what she introduced me to visit: www.newrichbdg.com

The Purpose or Why the H#!! Are You Reading This Anyway?

Allow me to step on a small but important soap box for a moment.

In our last episode I mentioned the all important maxim that knowledge is NOT power, the APPLICATION of knowledge is power. We live in a society that is completely content with merely knowing! We listen to sermon on Sunday that don’t carry into Monday, we read books on time management but are constantly late, we invest millions of dollars on nutritionists, gym memberships and exercise equipment but still haven’t lost that 20 pounds! Life is not about knowing, it’s about the doing! We all know this and yes many of us, myself included, still do not act on what we know.

Sadly I do not have the secret to overcoming this annoying pattern of behavior, but I do have some ideas. Paul, as in the one from the Bible, bemoaned this very conundrum in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”. Paul is talking about sin and the law and doing what’s right etc., which isn't quite the same thing as getting off your a#% and making a better life for yourself, but it's approximately the same principle. I see this law working in many areas of my life and the best solution I know is to take massive action towards whatever it is you want and, if you fail, get right back up and keep at it, over and over and over and over and over and over…..
Getting solid information on how to do whatever it is you're pursuing, setting goals, having a plan and accountability are also great tools but I'll not go into that today, however I highly recommend Stephen Covey's, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" as an excellent springboard.

And thus we arrive at the crux of this blog: to inspire you to action! For what is a story but an entertainment to motivate the soul and stir creativity in the imagination? Real estate investing is hard work. It takes time, diligent study and careful attention to detail to make it profitable. Without these things it will bury you alive: it is an incredibly powerful investing tool and one that is readily accessible to Harvard graduates and high school dropouts alike. But, no matter how educated you are, if you never use what you learn you will never become financially independent, debt free or see the fulfillment of your dreams.

It is my hope that by sharing my journey, you will gain confidence that you too can invest in real estate, or, if you already are, that you might learn a few thing along the way. Realizing your financial dream is not impossible, but it cannot be done alone or without the right tools.

Too see where I learned my trade visit: www.newrichbdg.com

How to Become a Real Estate Millionaire or Sometimes Infomercials Really Do Work

Having no plan of action, I unsurprisingly took no steps forward after reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. Kiyosaki’s genius recommendation was to buy his Cashflow game as well as his next book, both of which seemed very uninteresting: I do not like being up-sold. So, like most of us who finish a good book, I marveled at what I had learned, replaced it on the shelf and didn’t apply a modicum of what I had learned. Lesson number one for life people, and especially you college kids and/or recent grads out there: Knowledge is not power! The APPLICATION of knowledge is power!

I will preface the following portion of our tale with the following. I had been feeling restless and longing for change, sort of like Bears fans after the deplorable Rex Grossman season. I felt like my opportunity to be whoever I wanted to be and do whatever I wanted with this life was slipping away and, if I didn’t act soon, I would end up a little old lady with four cats, teaching music lessons because she never bothered to choose a different path. I had an idea that real estate investing, not brokering, was the next thing I would do, but didn’t know how or where to begin.

As you will undoubtedly hear me say again, I hold firm to the truth that people are motivated towards pleasure and away from pain. I was still enjoying the newness of being my own boss, was compensated quite well and felt fulfilled by the nature of my work. I was not hurting financially so, other than wanting a little variety, there wasn’t a lot of motivation to move in another direction, particularly one that might involve hard work and/or sacrifice and risk.

Several months passed and winter, having reached its calendar end, lingered into the technical beginning of spring, as winter in Chicago is won’t to do. My condo tends to be a bit breezy, whether the winds are open or not, which makes for a comfortable living space in warm months, but an absolute ice box in winter. The chill factor, however, was an excellent motivator for getting to the gym. Thus one snowy Friday night, while avoiding my co-dependent boyfriend, whom I really needed to dump, I found myself cold and lethargic on a treadmill at X Sport.

I had plugged in my earbuds and was set to change the channel when I heard yahoos yammering about real estate investing. The interviewer, a slick white dude who could have passed for a used car salesman or stock broker, was "interviewing" a clean cut guy, who looked decent now but was probably a complete dork in high school, named Dean Graziosi about his real estate investing book called, “How to be a Real Estate Millionaire”. Their conversation was about the tanking real estate market and the many investing opportunities it afforded. The sales pitch wasa for Dean's book, which showed you how to seize hold of those opportunities.

In the end, the yahoos convinced me. I never made it past the treadmill. I spent the remainder of the workout absorbing every word and left the gym feeling like God had opened a worm hole in the universe and allowed me to peek through for just a moment.

I set out to buy Dean’s book a few days later feeling inexplicably anxious. Here was a book that held the answers for which I had been searching and yet I felt they way I imagine teenage boys must when they buy porn or cigarettes for the first time. Even after purchasing it, that book sat in my trunk for several weeks; I couldn’t bring myself to start it. Perhaps this is what some guys go through when they finally meet their future wife and, while they know she’s “the one”, they can’t bring themselves to even say “hello” and initiate that first conversation. Maybe it’s because those guys, just like me, are staring their future in the eye and sometimes that’s a scary thing to confront….

"Go up to your fears and speak to them, and as ghosts are said to do, they will generally fade away" Anon

To see where the treadmill eventually led visit: www.newrichbdg.com

The Story Begins or How Rich Dad Poor Dad Changed My Life

As is the case for many blonds, the journey began before I realized it. I don’t remember why I bought “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, by Robert Kiyosaki, although I have fuzzy recollections of wandering through Borders and grabbing it either on a whim or because my accountant recommended it after I became incorporated (clearly he had encountered my type before!). In any event I had finished my bachelors at Loyola in pre-law and, sufficiently repulsed by the idea of law school, started my own business as a private music teacher. It was fall of 2007 and once I started that book I couldn’t put it down.

Rich Dad Poor Dad completely changed my perspective on how to create wealth, although this statement implies I had some idea of how to do that in the first place, which I did not. My long term financial plans were either a) work like a maniac ‘til 65 and hopefully retire with enough to last a few more years, b) marry rich or c) hope my parents died richer than they are now. Fortunately I read Kiyosaki and came up with a better plan.

I thought I was on the right track, as any charming, confident, self-employed and totally naive babe would think; I graduated college debt free, thanks to a scholarship I earned through the fabulously amazing Jack Kent Cooke Foundation; bought my first house, biggest mistake ever; and I was teaching kids how to play piano, an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable "job". My finances, however, were a bit dicey and I soon realized my plan had some flaws. Private teaching limited my profits since all income depended directly on the hours I taught; there would always be a limit to the number of students I could fit into a week and what I could reasonably charge for a lesson. Kiyosaki showed that, while I was a step ahead of an employee, a cash flowing business operating independently of my time was the better path. He also demonstrated that the true path to financial freedom is through real estate investing.

Fortunately naïveté and a general belief that I can do anything blinded me to the vastness of the mountain I was preparing to climb when I decided real estate investing was a good idea.

Kiyosaki’s book was a blinding revelation on how our economy “prepares” its youth for the rat race, but it fell short in explaining the mechanics of taking the road less trampled. How could I turn my teaching gig into a cash flowing business that wasn’t dependent on my limited time? Real estate investing sort of seemed like a broad topic, how was I supposed to start? While I finished the book with new perspective and a tenacious attitude, I did not have a plan of action. The seed of real estate investing, however, had been planted in my subconscious, which evidently had a lot of storage room because it took root and still hasn’t let go!

To see what I'm doing now, take a look at: http://www.newrichbdg.com/